Glossary of A Link to the Past Speedrunning

**(Taken From Rambly, With Permission)**

**Blue Balls (BB)**

During the first Agahnim fight, he'll randomly launch an attack which you can't reflect back at him. The number of these in a perfectly executed Agahnim fight (i.e. no missed shots) ranges from 0 all the way up to 15 (very rare) -- 3 is the most common. For every 3 blue balls, Agahnim will also do an extra thunder attack, costing additional time.

**Bomb Jump**

Standing at a specific position in relation to a pit and a placed bomb will boost you over the pit, allowing you to skip portions of some dungeons. In a standard Any% speedrun, there are four Bombjumps that are performed: Two fairly easy similar ones in the Tower of Hera and Skull Woods, one moderately difficult one in Ice Palace (IPBJ), and one very hard one in Palace of Darkness (Hammerjump). These work in all versions of the game, including the GBA version!

**Exploration Glitch (EG)**

There are various ways to go down a layer under the floor, which effectively allows you to walk through every wall in the game. Using this glitch enables you to beat the game in less than three minutes; it's banned in nearly every category, even some that allow Out of Bounds glitches.

**Fake Flippers**

In the original Japanese version of the game (1.0), jumping into a body of water and initiating a screen transition immediately afterwards will trick the game into thinking you have the flippers, allowing you to swim early. Getting hurt while doing Fake Flippers will cause the screen to scroll infinitely, effectively softlocking the game and requiring a reset.

**Itemdash**

In the original Japanese version of the game (1.0), holding A+Y on the same frame will allow you to do a Pegasus Boots dash and use an item at the same time. This allows for some interesting effects, like hammering through entire rows of posts or catching a fairy instantly.

**Out of Bounds (OoB)**

There are various glitches that allow you to go through walls; going outside of the game's boundaries is banned in most categories. Generally, "boundaries" in the ALTTP speedrunning community are defined as dungeon walls, mountains, trees, and other larger objects; for the sake of allowing bombjumps, going through pits and small barriers in dungeons isn't defined as Out of Bounds.

**Save and Quit (S+Q)**

Saving and quitting allows you to warp to specific points in the Light World or the Pyramid of Power in the Dark World; this increases Link's death counter by 1 each time it's done in the SNES version of the game.

**Superspeed**

In the original Japanese version of the game (1.0), doing a Hookshot dash while on a stairway/ladder will allow Link to move very fast.

**Torch Glitch**

In most versions of the game (except PAL, Japanese 1.2, and the GBA version), during the Ganon fight while the torches are going out, if you light the torch on the left before the one on the right goes out, the right one will never go out.

**Wallpumping/Airpumping**

When facing up or left, mashing perpendicular directions against a wall or towards a specific point will allow Link to boost a pixel. It works on staircases, too, such as the long ladder on Death Mountain leading to Hera. For a more technical explanation: Link moves in alternating speeds of 2px, 1px, 2px, 1px every frame when he walks north or west, and 1px, 2px, 1px, 2px when he walks east or south. Mashing a diagonal resets his walking speed to the first in the pattern. Mashing while facing east or south actually slows Link down; this is called "anti-pumping".